


The House Across the Street

by jinkieswouldyoulookatthis



Category: Supernatural
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-03-17
Updated: 2017-03-21
Packaged: 2018-10-06 09:29:30
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 4,552
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10331597
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jinkieswouldyoulookatthis/pseuds/jinkieswouldyoulookatthis
Summary: The house across the street from you has always been low key weird, but you're finally getting new neighbors, who will they be and can your relationship with our boyfriend survive them moving in?Eventual relationship with one of the Winchester brothers.  Most likely there will be at least some smut.  But that's all I know for sure at this point.  This is a work in process.A huge thank you to AnotherWinchesterFangirl for beta'ing this for me!





	1. Chapter 1

The house across the street had been empty for over a year. The previous occupants had been there one day and then gone the next—no moving truck, no coming and going, no shuttling of boxes and belongings. One day they simply weren’t there anymore. The curtains were gone, the rooms empty, obvious even from across the street. Hell, they even dug up and took the azaleas from either side of the front door. You had never really spoken with them, didn’t even know their names, and you had no idea where they went. But nobody ever asked about them, so you supposed it didn’t really matter. Your boyfriend, Alan, who you'd been seeing pretty seriously for about six months, muttered something about them having been drug dealers and that he was glad to see them gone.

A couple months later, you noticed a piece of paper taped to the inside of the front picture window. You squinted at it from the end of your driveway but couldn’t make out what it said. You walked across the street and stood with your toes just in the grass but still couldn’t read it. You hadn’t known them and you didn’t feel comfortable trespassing to get a better look, so you let it go, although you did mention it to Alan that evening.

"Yeah, I saw that earlier. What does it say?" he asked.

You shrugged, "I don't know, I can't read it from here." 

He just sort of hrumphed and went back to watching the news. 

The months slipped by, as they so often do. Summer came, humid and sweltering, dusty and dry, in that weird way of the Mid-Atlantic where a month of 90°F and hotter weather with around 99% humidity brings absolutely no rain to the parched earth. Occasionally you would find yourself staring out your kitchen window, eyes focusing on nothing in particular, and you would slowly realize that you were wondering what that paper said. 

Fall blew in, hot on the heels of summer, bringing long overdue rains and icy blasts of wind interspersed with bright, warm days that made you want to stretch out in the sun. 

Your relationship with Alan evolved—he’d stay with you more nights than not, but he still kept his own apartment across town. He was nice, comforting and non-threatening which was surprising considering his short fuse. Like a lot of guys that grew up to be shorter than average, he had an angry chip on his shoulder that he just couldn’t quite seem to let go of and often lashed out at the world around him. His temper and general insecurity kept him from getting very far in his career, a fact that seemed to weigh heavily on him at times. But he never focused his anger towards you, rather, he was sweet on you, obviously adored you, and the sex was pretty darn good, so you harbored some hope that things might work out long term between the two of you. It was, however, still just a little too early to tell.

It was on one of those unseasonably hot days that your curiosity about that piece of paper finally got the better of you. It was early enough on a Sunday morning that the neighborhood still felt sleepy and quiet. Alan was sleeping in, having stayed up way too late, again, and you were puttering around your yard, doing a little gardening, weeding, tidying, when your eyes strayed across to the big, dark picture window with its enigmatic piece of paper. You just couldn’t take it anymore; a wave of bravery hit you and you crossed the street. Once again, you hesitated at the edge of the road, toes of your shoes brushing the grass, your eyes straining to make out the tiny, faded print on the letter-sized paper inside the glass. It was a vain attempt. With a nervous glance up and down the street you made up your mind and boldly stepped into the yard. Squinting at the paper, you couldn't make out what it said until you were about ten feet from the window, right in the middle of the front yard. In dark letters it said, "No Trespassing" followed by a lot of even smaller text that you didn’t even try to read at that point.

"Oh for fuck's sake." You couldn't help but laugh as you shook your head and walked back across the street and into your own yard.

And that was it for a few months. Someone was mowing the lawn (in fact it was being better maintained now than when the house was occupied), but you never saw them. They must have come while you were at work, which made sense when you thought about it. Alan came over most nights, he'd either bring carry-out or you'd cook something, and the two of you would watch tv, making out on the sofa for a while before heading upstairs for sexy fun times. That was Alan's term, not yours, although you had to admit that it was an adequate description. 

It must have been around Thanksgiving when you saw the first group of people across the street. You were making lunch and glanced out the kitchen window, surprised to find two cars parked in the sandy area that served as a driveway. It had been so long since you'd seen any signs of life over there that you couldn't help but gawk like Petunia Dursley, craning your neck this way and that trying to see who they were and what they might be doing. It took a moment before you spotted movement through the big window in the living room. There were at least two people over there, inside the house. And several minutes later, as you were putting the finishing touches on your sandwich, you saw an older man and two women walking across the lawn, looking at the structure. The man held a clipboard and they all were pointing at various parts of the building as he took down notes. You figured he might be a home inspector or a contractor preparing an estimate. Less than a week later you saw another man walking the house with one of the women from before and over the weeks between Thanksgiving and Christmas you saw at least two other men go through the house as well. Definitely contractors, you and Alan decided.

The holidays came and went. One morning in early January you were making a pot of coffee at o'dark-thirty in the morning, just as the sky was beginning to blush with the upcoming sun rise and something outside caught your eye. You squinted through the window, trying to make out the shape in the lingering gloom. Was that a person standing across the street? If so, they were being super creepy, standing there in the dark. A car drove by, it's headlights illuminating the scene and setting your paranoia quickly to rest. There, in the grass across the street, was a brand new, bright white, for sale sign. You were 100% certain that it had not been there last night when you'd come home.

Over the next couple of months you happily watched as cars slowed on the street, passengers examining the place for long moments before slowly driving on. A realtor, a middle-aged white guy shaped a lot like a pear, frequently walked house hunters around the small, corner lot and through the tiny house (which, you were surprised to learn from the online listing, was actually about 600 square feet bigger than your own modest little home). Young couples, older couples, occasional lone individuals, you watched with interest as they all came and went. Then, one morning, the for sale sign was suddenly gone again. A thrill of suburban excitement passed through you, wondering who your new neighbors could be. You hoped they would be a little less off-putting than the last ones. But the only person you ever saw was the realtor. Until the work crews started showing up.

For about six months, there were workers from various trades—carpenters, drywallers, painters, roofers—in and out of the place. It was a regular hub of activity. Alan walked over one morning, on his way out to work, and chatted with one of the painters. The previous owners had apparently been smokers, and the entire interior had to be gutted down to the studs and replaced. From your vantage point in your kitchen the change was extraordinary. Gone was the abandoned, rundown-looking house with peeling, faded paint, broken gutters, and overgrown yard. In its place was a cute little brick cape cod with bright, white gables and porch and a beautiful robin's egg blue front door surrounded by gravel walks, freshly paved driveway and flowered landscaping. Ramshackle to major curb appeal. And then, just like before, a new for sale sign sprang up in the front lawn over night, like Jack had tossed some magic sign-growing beans out in the moonlight. 

The realtor came and staged the house for the holidays, with a huge wreath for the front door and pre-lit faux topiaries on the porch. Every weekend dozens of people came to open houses on both Saturday and Sunday. But still the sign remained. By the end of February, the prospective buyers slowed to barely a trickle, and you began to suspect the holiday decorations might just stay up permanently. Then one morning in mid-March, you looked up from stirring your coffee to see the realtor and two other people, a matched set in their early 20's with long, black hair and indistinguishable genders, carrying out the meager furniture that had been used to stage the home. A short sofa, wicker-backed armchair, bed frame and mattress, along with a few plastic storage tubs and probably a table or two. They worked for a couple hours and then were gone. You wondered if the house had finally sold, a suspicion that would be reinforced the next morning when you woke to find that the sign had disappeared, again, in the middle of the night. But nothing else happened. The house just sat. You thought that maybe the new owner, owners, might show up the next weekend, but if they did it was while you were either asleep or at work, because you didn't see anyone. Not until two weeks later.

Alan was out of town for the weekend, visiting his folks, so you swung past your favorite Indian restaurant on your way home from work on Friday. Alan wasn't a fan of Indian food, so it was a rare treat these days, and you were looking forward to a little quality time to yourself. You were narrowing down the list of potential rom-coms you might watch when you turned onto your street and saw the moving van. Your heart jumped a little, absurd excitement coursing through you. New neighbors! You had to force yourself to concentrate on getting safely parked in your driveway before studying the scene in your rearview mirror. Oh, you saw someone! Oh. Not just any someone, but a tall, broad shouldered, good looking man with short, light brown hair, walked out from behind the house and started up the ramp into the truck. His black tee shirt clung and stretched very nicely across his arms and back. He looked like he should be modeling for cigarette ads, gorgeous yet rugged, his walk reminding you of a cowboy for some reason you couldn't immediately determine. He disappeared into the truck just as a second man came out of the house. Wow. Even taller, equally broad, muscly and attractive with a grey tee shirt and longer hair that he flipped back from his face with a little shake of his head. Were they movers, your new neighbors, or models? Could you be that lucky? You realized your mouth was kinda hanging open and shut it when a third person came out of the house, this time a woman with shoulder length blonde hair and average height and build. She followed the men into the truck. 

You slowly gathered your stuff from the passenger seat and got out just as the two men carried a desk down the ramp. It must have been heavy, solid wood, judging by their bulging biceps. You tried to not stare as you walked up your drive to the side gate. But you were practically pressed against the slits in the privacy fence as you fished out your keys to let yourself in through the kitchen door. You hurried over to the window and set your bag and food down on the countertop, peering through the window as the woman carried a medium sized box, marked "books" down the ramp. Sighing a little as you grabbed a fork from the drawer and popped open the carry-out container, she was probably the neighbor and they were most likely movers. But, hey, maybe they were related? Brothers? One of them might even be her husband. As soon as you thought of it you sort of mentally face palmed. Of course, that would make sense. But even still, these folks were much more attractive and already more interesting than your old neighbors.

You stood there watching them until it was too dark for you to see what you were eating. As soon as you turned the light on, you realized you couldn't continue watching out the window, they'd be able to see you. The last thing you wanted was their first impression of you to be that of a nosy neighbor. So you pushed your curiosity aside and went into your living room to watch a movie. New neighbors. You were smiling before the movie even began.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which you find out who your new neighbor is. And sometimes, even sucky winter weather has its upside.

"I go away for one weekend and Thor moves in across the street, really?" Alan said upon arriving the following Monday evening. 

"What?" Your head snapped up from peering into the skillet on the stove so fast that you whacked into the corner of the range hood. "OW! Oh, ow. Ow." You rubbed your scalp, gingerly, seeking to soothe the point of impact and reassure yourself that you weren't bleeding. Luckily, you weren't. You looked at Alan as he stepped close. "What about Thor?"

He chuckled, "You alright there, Calamity Jane?" His fingers gently brushing against your hair.

"I'll live. The plus side to being hardheaded. Hi, by the way." You gave him a quick kiss. "What did you mean about Thor?"

"You mean you haven't seen him?" Alan turned and put a six pack in the fridge. "I figured you would have been glued to the window all weekend." He gave you a teasing little poke in the side and you rolled your eyes.

"Not all weekend." You both laughed. There was no way you could have denied that you were slightly obsessed with the general oddness of everything across the street. Of course it didn't help that the house in question was basically all you could see from the kitchen and since you had the tendency to daydream in there, leaning up against the counter, you saw it a lot. "I saw furniture getting moved in on Friday, but no one since. But, contrary to popular belief, I actually wandered away from the window occasionally. Is there someone over there now?" You glanced out the window, but it was already too dark to see anything more than a dim light shining in the kitchen across from you. "Was it the tall one? With the hair?" You made a sort of fringe gesture of hair hanging in your eyes.

"Yep." You heard the crack and hiss of a beer opening. "Why? What other options were there?"

You filled him in on what he'd missed as you loaded up a couple of plates and headed into the other room to sit down. After speculating for a bit on the neighbors you managed to pry a few details about his weekend from him. His parents were well, but his dad was going in to get a scan for something about his leg. 

"Ooh! Speaking of Thor, Iron Fist hit Netflix...wanna watch?" you asked hopefully as your brain jumped tracks suddenly.

"Were we still talking about Thor?" Allan shook his head in feigned disbelief, he knew how obsessive your mind was. "And didn't Iron Fist come out on Friday? Did you actually wait to watch it with me? I'm touched!" He kissed your forehead and wrapped an arm around your shoulder. "Yes, but only one episode, I've got to go in early tomorrow."

With an exaggerated sigh you said, "Fine! I mean, I've waited this long, I suppose I'll live with just one episode tonight. But I'm watching another episode tomorrow, with or without you."

"Reasonable enough," he replied and grabbed the remote to switch the TV on.

 

The next afternoon a late season winter storm blew through the region, dumping a good eight inches of snow and a crisp coating of ice over top of everything. Alan had, wisely, chosen to stay at his place, since it was closer to his work. 

The sun dawned bright and dazzlingly clear Wednesday morning and your neighborhood suddenly looked like something out of a children’s Christmas book, all soft white curves and glistening mounds. You quickly drank down your coffee while bundling up in boots, warm coat and gloves. Grabbing the snow shovel from the closet, you headed outside to clear your driveway. The sharp sounds of shovels scraping pavement and happily shrieking children filled the air. Luckily, your driveway wasn’t very long, just two car lengths, so you only had the short distance from the back of your car to the road to clear. Even still, 30 minutes later, you were only about halfway done when you paused to take a breather. Leaning your elbow on the upright handle of the shovel you stood and enjoyed the view of the snow covered street for a bit.

The crunching of boots on snow caught your attention and you turned towards the sound. The long-haired mover from Friday, a.k.a. Thor, was walking across the street toward you, a friendly smile on his incredibly handsome face. Wow, you thought. Just, wow. You smiled back, grateful that the cold had already rosied your cheeks so he wouldn’t notice you blushing.

“Hi!” he said, his voice deep and smooth, and he smiled a little wider. Oh, he had dimples!

“Hi!” you managed.

“I, uh, just moved in.” He gestured back across the street and then extended his hand to you. “I’m Sam.”

You shook his hand, or, rather, you allowed his hand to completely engulf yours and give it a gentle up and down. “Y/N. It’s nice to meet you. I’ve been wondering who was going to buy the place. Welcome to the neighborhood!”

"Thanks. It's nice to meet you too." He looked down at the shovel, which you were still leaning on. 

God he was tall, you realized. 

"I've, uh, actually got a bit of a proposition for you." His eyes narrowed, although he was still smiling.

You blinked up at him, unsure where this was going, but silently praying that he wasn't going to turn out to be some lecherous creep. Lecherous creeps made horrible neighbors, always having to avoid them and worrying about what their intentions actually were, it would be a real pain in the ass.

Seeming to sense your hesitation, he continued quickly. "I'm not really prepared for winter weather. I foolishly thought we were passed it for the year. So, I thought I’d offer to finish shoveling your driveway for you, if I can borrow the shovel to clear my own?"

You sighed in relief. So far, so good. He seemed like a nice guy and in your experience, nice guys made excellent neighbors.

"Of course you can borrow the shovel. But, you don't need to finish my driveway, I can do it. I'll bring the shovel over as soon as I'm done." 

He looked a little embarrassed, his forehead wrinkling up in the most endearing way as he glanced back at his car--a new-ish, shiny, black, Dodge Charger--and the snow drift sloping down the side of it.

"What?" You asked.

"Well, it's just," he paused and looked at you. You could see him trying to calculate your potential response to what he was about to say. He brushed his hair back from his face and continued. "It's just, you're going kind of slowly and I really need to be able to get my car clear so I can leave within the hour. I've got to be somewhere and..."

You huffed out a laugh and shook your head. "Well. Far be it for me to hold you back." You leaned the handle of the shovel in his direction. "Go for it."

"Sorry." He smiled apologetically as he took the handle. "Thank you. I'll bring it right back."

"Mmmhmm." You walked a few steps back toward your house before grinning to yourself and turning back to look at him. "I'm gonna be timing you."

He laughed and set to work.

Back in your kitchen, you shed your coat and gloves and poured yourself another cup of coffee. Hands hugging the sides of the mug to warm up, you watched Sam shovel the rest of your driveway in about five minutes before striding across the street to clear his own. Honestly, watching all that bending and lifting did more to warm you up than the coffee did. Soon enough however, he finished and was knocking on your front door. You waited a moment, so it wouldn’t seem like you’d been watching, even though you had been, but you didn’t want him to know that. You really needed to get another hobby, you chided yourself.

“Wow, okay, you do that a lot faster than I do,” you admitted after opening the door and looking across both drives. 

Sam shrugged as he handed you back the shovel. “Thanks.”

“Absolutely anytime you need to borrow it, you are welcome to shovel my driveway for me.” 

He laughed, and, dear god in heaven, you swore that his smile would melt snow all by itself. “I’ll keep that in mind. It was good to meet you, Y/N. Thanks again!” And he walked off, long legs eating up the distance to his car in no time at all.

You went back inside and got yourself ready for work.

By that afternoon all the weather reports were calling for another storm to tear through the area that night. 

You texted Alan, “Did you see the weather?”

“Just saw it. Probably going to stay home again tonight”

“Ok, talk to you tomorrow”

“K”

***

Your phone dinged. It was still dark outside when you opened your eyes. Another ding had you stretching your arm out to the side to retrieve your phone from the nightstand. Even auto-dimmed for the low lighting, the screen was blindingly bright, and you blinked and rubbed your eyes as they adjusted. It was a text from Alan, “Babe everything’s coated in ice be careful.”

“Good to know, thx! You too!”

Ugh! Ice was the worst, you thought. You still had an hour before you needed to be up, but with ice, you might need more time getting into your car. Assuming, that is, that the roads were safe by then. So you reset your alarm to wake you in half an hour and collapsed back into your pillow.

***

Forty-five minutes later you were blowing steam off your first mug of coffee and staring out the window trying to determine how much ice was out there. Everything looked shiny, not a good sign, and the bare branches of the trees looked like they were coated in glass, really not a good sign.

You drank your coffee, got dressed and ready to leave the house, picked out your boots with the best traction and carefully stepped outside through the kitchen door that lead onto the patio. The concrete was definitely slick, but you could walk well enough. The gate, however, was completely, solidly frozen shut, which the bruise on your shoulder would attest to the next day. So you let yourself back into the kitchen, locking the side door behind yourself, and went out the front door instead. You were fine, thanks to the porch roof, until you reached the steps and your feet shot out to one side, your death grip on the railing was the only thing that kept you upright. The ground wasn't as slick and you made it, cautiously, to your car without slipping again. 

Your car, you noticed as you walked around it to get to the driver’s door, had at least a ¼” of ice coating it. Although it happily unlocked when you pushed the button on the key fob and the door handle moved when you pulled on it, the door did not. You tried again. And again. The door wouldn't budge. You carefully walked around to the other side to try the passenger door, but it was no use, it wouldn't open either. Growling in frustration, you were halfway back around to the driver’s side again, right behind the car, when your feet slipped again, but this time there was nothing to grab hold of and you fell on your butt on the hard pavement.

“Ow!”

“You ok?” 

You looked up in embarrassed alarm at the sound of Sam’s voice. You’d been so preoccupied you hadn't noticed that he was outside.

“My butt hurts, but I think I'll live.” You grimaced, cheeks bright red, and tried to get back up only to slip again, this time ending up on your back. “Ow!”

“Oh! Do you need help?” He actually sounded more concerned than amused at your predicament, and you mentally gave him another point in the nice guy column.

“No. This is part of my plan. I'm going to lie here and let my rapidly dwindling body heat melt my driveway. Thanks anyway, though!”

He chuckled. “Okay, well, you could try that, or, you could let me use some of this rock salt which would melt the ice without the hypothermia and trip to the ER?”

You turned your head and looked at him. He held a large bag that looked like it probably weighed a couple of dozen pounds at least. That's when you noted that he was walking around confidently, having obviously already treated his own drive.

“Huh,” you replied, “I suppose we could give that a shot. I can always go back to my method if it doesn't work.” Carefully, you sat up and waited for him to work his way over to you. 

“That is quite a bag of salt you've got there,” you said as he offered you a hand up and spread a generous amount of salt crystals around your feet.

He shrugged. “When I saw they were forecasting another storm, I went out and got some winter supplies. Didn't want to be caught unprepared again, it's so embarrassing to have to borrow stuff from your neighbors.” He was smirking as he walked around your car, shaking salt out as he went.

“Oh yeah, that is humiliating. Oh hey, look! I think my butt actually melted a spot!”


End file.
